he supervises approximately 1,000 attorneys representing the united states, the president and cabinet officers and agencies. he supervises much of the federal government civil litigation which includes the defensive legal challenge to congressional statutes, administration policies and federal agency actions. at the justice department he has devoted significant attention to the civil division, extensive docket of national security cases. he has worked with the office of the solicitor general to which he makes recommendations about supreme court cases. stuart delery has a strong track record of pro bono service. from 2007-2008 he supervised the team of lawyers that conducted an investigation on behalf of the district of columbia office of tax and revenue into the fact of $40 million in district of columbia funds by long-term employees, plead guilty to

federal charges in 2008. the judiciary committee has received letters in support of stuart delery's nomination from a bipartisan group of current and former government officials and a group of assistant attorneys general for the civil division in the administration of presidents reagan, george h. w. bush, clinton and george w. bush. now i will turn to b. todd jones who i have known for a long time. we worked closely together as members of the minnesota law enforcement community when he was in his first stint as u.s. attorney for minnesota when bill clinton was president and i was county attorney. for the past two years b. todd jones has been doing the impossible, killing two crucial federal law enforcement positions as acting director of the atf and u.s. attorney for the state of minnesota. i see anthony back there. it hasn't been easy. todd has his wife margaret and is a father not just any but

four other children and a good one at that. we welcome anthony here today representing the family. b. todd jones has an impressive background that has him well prepared to lead the atf. at the university of minnesota he entered the u.s. marine corps where he served on active duty as judge advocate and infantry officer from 1983 until 1989. two years later he was called back to active duty during the first iraq war. in addition to his military career and having the rare distinction serving u.s. attorney andrew two different presidents b. todd jones has a strong record as the line prosecutor in the u.s. attorney's office and outstanding career in private practice. today we are here to consider his nomination to be permanent director of the atf, a nomination supported by the national association of former

u.s. attorneys including those who served under george bush and clinton administrations, several former assistant u.s. attorneys, administrator of the bureau of criminal apprehension, minnesota county attorneys association, international association of chiefs of police, for eternal order of police and the atf association to name a few. given the atf's role in investigating crime insurance incidents like the marathon bombing, this should be a top priority for the united states senate to have a permanent director of the atf. doesn't make sense for the director to serve in temporary capacity and yet there has never been a permanent director in place since 2006 when it became the senate confirmed position. i think that is wrong. something is wrong when the senate fails to confirm the head of an agency for seven years. sanding is wrong when we have

atf agents on the front lines of major investigations like the boston marathon bombing while victims lay dismembered in a hospital, agents were on the front lines figuring out who did it and what happened and yet the senate will not confirm a permanent leader of this agency. seems some members of the senate don't want to have atf the benefit of a confirmed director of so for all the concerns raised about the atf some of them very legitimate confirming a full-time permanent director should be a critical step to making sure the atf is doing its job and doing it well. b. todd jones has never turned down a tough assignment. he faced challenging situations throughout his career taking over the atf in the summer of 2011 was another example of that. as everyone knows the agency was under a tremendous amount of

scrutiny and understandable criticism for the failed fast and furious operation and b. todd jones was brought in to get the atf back on its feet. since then he has worked to revamp the agency's practices and policies and began making the essential reforms that are critical to the more than 2300 agents to perform under pressure day in and day out the sun major investigations like boston and west texas but also on lesser-known investigations like serialize ands in california, cigarette smuggling rings that fund terrorists and then and drug trafficking under cover associations in miami. before taking over the atf jones served as head of the attorney's office in minnesota and the two presidents and as assistant u.s. attorney. as an assistant u.s. lead prosecutor in a number of cases involving criminal drug

conspiracies, money-laundering, financial fraud and violent crimes in the 1990s. in the private sector he became a partner at two very well respected minnesota law firms. to highlight some of his accomplishments during his tenure as u.s. attorney in minnesota that office with b. todd jones at the helm prosecuted operation rhino which involved criminal prosecution of omar mohammad who recruited young somali americans to fight for terrorist groups in somalia. muhammed was indicted in november of 2009 and pled guilty in july of 2011 to conspiracy to murder, kidnapping and name abroad. to date investigation resulted in charges filed against 22 other individuals. operation highlight which was a major drug trafficking investigation involving more than 100 local, state and federal law enforcement officers and resulted in 26 indictments, 25 guilty pleas and sentences of

200 months in prison. operation brother's keeper was a successful investigation and prosecution of a rico case involving a regional 200 member again that took 22 dangerous criminals off the street. received national attention and was the prosecution of 27 defendantss associated with the mexican drug cartel including apprehension of the cartel's regional leader and sentences as high as 20 years in prison. jones's office was active in other areas like complex white-collar crimes including the successful prosecution of a $3.65 billion ponzi scheme, $3.65 billion, the second biggest ponzi scheme in united states history after bernie madoff. those are just a few of the examples of the cases b. todd jones oversaw as u.s. attorney in minnesota. he is well qualified and has a

range of experiences and accomplishments that leave him more than ready to leave the atf on a full time basis. not on a temporary basis for an interim basis. he is a talented, dedicated, hardworking public servants who serve his country in the military and civilian agencies. i look forward to hearing from both of our nominees today and having a discussion about their past experiences and outlooks on the position to which they have been nominated. thank you, both of you. i will turn it over to senator grassley 11, the ranking member. >> as the chairwoman knows and as i told her yesterday i have checked into holding this hearing and request the hearing be postponed. as we sit here today it remains an open investigation by the office of special counsel resulting b. todd jones's conduct as u.s. attorney. generally when a nominee is subject to an open investigation the committee does not move

forward until the issues are resolved and of course this is the sensible thing to do. when there is a pending investigation the committee doesn't have the full information about the nominee and in this case allegations of gross mismanagement of the authority in mr. jones''s office and the complained that mr. jones retaliated against a whistle-blower. these are serious charges and ones that are of particular concern to me as a known defender of whistle-blowers. the public interest demands resolution of these issues. members of the committee are entitled to know that -- if these charges have any merit. one way for that to happen is for the committee to undertake its own investigation. that has not happened. another is to follow the usual committee practice and wait for

any third party investigating agency to complete its process and reach a conclusion. that has not taken place either so we are left today to take mr. jones's word. we have no way of independently verifying what he says or ascertain the truth of the matter. in addition to the open complaints there are numerous unresolved issues regarding mr. jones and his record when serving as u.s. attorney and acting atf director which is why i requested a postponement of the hearing, the chairman did postponed the hearing one week that did not cure the procedural defect with the nomination so it is unfortunate that we go ahead with this hearing before an open complaint is resolved. in april when the chairman started talking about a hearing for mr. jones i was concerned about moving forward.

there were outstanding requests made to mr. jones and i previously received a copy of an anonymous letter to the office of special counsel making vicious allegations against mr. jones. i sent a letter on april 8th asking for an update on those allegations. on april 12th osce responded that there were two pending matters on u.s. attorney's office district of minnesota where mr. jones is u.s. attorney. the first matter was a prohibited personnel practice complaint and the second was all whistle-blower disclosure alleging gross mismanagement and abuse of authority. on may 28th the chairman send an order for a hearing for mr. jones to be held the following week. on may 29th by santa letter raising my concerns about proceeding with a nominee who had open complaints and asks the hearing be postponed consistent

with previous committee practice. on june 3rd the chairman postponed the hearing one week but in doing so the chairman expressed disappointment that the april 0th sc letter had been publicly disclosed. continuing justification for holding this hearing today is based on this disclosure the nominees should have an opportunity to respond. but of course there was nothing confidential in a letter. in fact i am not about to hide this issue from the public. it is relevant to our inquiry as to the qualifications of the nominee. if others want to hide this information, that of course would be their decision. additionally there were numerous allegations that republicans were holding up the nominee for no good reason. the po s c letter identified mr. jones's hearing was not going forward at this time.

that justification remains valid today. again, this would be consistent with prior committee practice. furthermore everyone knows mr. jones's appearance today is no substitute for a full investigation. the investigation is open so even if we ask questions today we can't rely on the information we have received. the nomination hearing is nothing like the investigating process conducted by the office of special counsel. a full 0 s c inquiry there would be interviews with witnesses, a review of documents and interviews with 9 attorneys and law enforcement officials in minnesota. we have access to none of these at this point. we only have one witness, a nominee who is able to offer his side of the story. where are the whistle-blowers? assistant u.s. the attorneys and staff members, who is offering the other side of the story?

we did receive a token offer from the majority for one witness, that offer came sunday night, 36 hours ago. and late yesterday we received an offer to conduct some interviews this coming friday, after today's hearing. that is quite perplexing to me. we are going to begin the investigation after the hearing is concluded. when has a committee ever conducted an investigation after the hearing for that nominee? on june 4th i suggested to the chairman that a mere one week postponement of a hearing would not allow time for open matters to be resolved. we had no reason to believe that the osc investigation would be close. seems to me if a majority did not want to wait until the osc completed to investigation the committee would be obligated to fully investigate the matter for

itself. i therefore suggest we begin the process by calling additional witnesses to testify at today's hearing. on june 5th osc provided the committee an update on two pending cases, it reported that while vote whistle-blower disclosure case had been closed, prohibited personnel practice complaint was moving through mediation for the time being. on june 6th, the chairman reported to me he had been notified by osc that it reached resolution on a retaliation allegations against mr. jones and that investigation is now closed. this directly contradicted the information i received. i suggested additional witnesses might be necessary. sunday night, 36 hours ago my staff was notified by the majority staff that the chairman agreed to one minority witness.

by that time there was no reasonable way that a witness could be contacted or arrange for travel on monday for appearance on tuesday morning. yesterday i contacted special counsel inquiring to her availability to testify to at least explain more fully the status of the complaints. miss lerner replied, quote, i am unable to testify tomorrow about this matter, moreover it would not be appropriate for me to provide any additional information about the pending case. miss lerner confirmed for the second time that the investigation remains open. she stated, quote, the reassignment of the case for mediation did not result in the matter being closed. based on all of this i cannot help but conclude that the majority of staff on his nomination through the committee no matter what. here we are left with an open

investigation of serious allegations of whistle-blower retaliation and these are not unsubstantiated charges. of all the complaints received by osc only 10% chosen for further investigation. this case was one of them. a career non partisan staff of osc forwarding the investigation? presumably they felt it needed to be looked into. that says something about the likely merits of the case. there are also indications of a larger pattern here, one known to osc, acting director jones in a video sent to all agents stating, quote, if you don't respect the chain of command, if you don't find the appropriate way to raise your concerns to your leadership there will be consequences. that throws, lot of cold water on anybody who might want to whistle-blower under the law. this video was seen by 7 police

and u.s. attorney's office of minnesota also added by mr. jones and his other capacity. these employees anonymously road to the office of special counsel asking for, quote, a review of the patterns, practices, treatment and abuse they have suffered redding the video skating a, quote, file for the employees at atf as we had the same types of statements made to rust. they then said mr. jones, quote, had instituted a climate of fear, pushed employees out of the office, dismissed employees wrongly, of violated hiring practices of e eosc and polarize the office with orwellian style of management. and a special agent in charge of

the fbi minnesota division mr. donald oswald wrote to this committee voicing concerns about mr. jones. in that letter he wrote, quote, as a retired fbi senior executive i am one of the few voices that will to publicly express our complete discontent with mr. jones's ineffective leadership and poor service provided to the federal law enforcement community without fear of retaliation or retribution from him. of course those are chilling words. he cautioned, quote, mr. jones was and still remains a significant impediment for federal law enforcement to effectively protect the citizens of minnesota. the concerns and allegations in mr. oswald's letter were corroborated by another assistant u.s. attorney in mr. jones''s office mr. jeffrey paulson. mr. paulson gave his consent

that is whistle-blower disclosure complaint be released to the committee. it contains the detailed account of the mismanagement, abuse of authority and other problems within the office and details mr. jones's negative attitude towards whistle-blowers and retaliation action he took against mr. paulson. we received this document leaked yesterday afternoon, still reviewing the document, osc requested of the chairman the file be designated, quote, committee confidential. my staff informed the chairman's staff that i would be asking questions based on this document. we ask the chairman's staff to let us know if he intended to designate the document committee confidential. to my knowledge the chairman has not done so. i certainly do not think it would be appropriate to hide this information. i see no reason given mr. paulson's waiver why this should not be available as part of the

phone record. in fact i was told repeatedly that today's hearing this very day would be my one opportunity to ask mr. jones any questions, i certainly intend to ask mr. jones questions about the allegations described in the complaint. i have additional procedural problems with this nomination, one which illustrates another basic breakdown of routine protocol and normal committee process was the delivery of certain routine nomination materials. when i received a routine filing required of all nominees i noted missing pages, two separate documents. i requested these on may 28th. one of the requested document was delivered to my office last night at 9:58 p.m.. there was no explanation for the delay. i have yet to receive the other requested documents. it is no secret that there have

been a number of controversial events mr. jones has been involved in to one degree or another. i sent numerous letters to the department requesting information from or about mr. jones. in many cases i have received no response or an incomplete response and here is a sampling. on fast and furious, subpoenaed documents on october 12th, 2011, house oversight government relations committee requested the records of the attorney-general's advisory committee related to operation fast and furious during a period that mr. jones was committee chair. i reiterated that request on april 10th this year. secondly atf accountability on october 19th, 2012, january 15th, 2013, and requested information on which

atf employees would be disciplined for their roles in fast and furiously fast and furious interview requests. on october 7th, 2011, through january 2012 i requested staff interviews with mr. jones regarding fast and furious, reiterated requests to mr. jones april 10th, 2015. interview requests with u.s. attorney's office breakdown, april 10th, 2013, letter also indicated mr. jones's failure to act on management issues was another area of questions to be covered in the staffing to the. interview requests on operation fearless on april 10th, 2013, letter indicating that the bosh operation fearless in milwaukee was another area of questions to be covered in the staff

interview. six document request, on may 10th, 2013, i send mr. jones power request for the office of professional responsibility and security operations report on the botched milwaukee storefront operation. what has been the reply to all these requests? on june 4th, 2013, two months after my request for many of these items, i received a letter from the department of justice stating in part mr. jones looks forward to answering your questions about these matters during this nomination hearing before the senate judiciary committee. i regret that the chairman has allowed the department of justice to dictate to us how our oversight investigation will be conducted. furthermore it is disappointing the department was allowed to hijack this nomination to support their purpose, not ours.

but since we have held zero hearings dedicated to fast and furious in this committee perhaps i should be asking to ask questions at all, the same goes for other matters i mentioned the. on the st. paul quid pro quo matter i was able to have a staff interview with mr. jones remind my colleagues about this issue i give a brief summary, february 12th, 2012, in st. paul struck a deal, the terms of the quid pro quo were as follows -- the department declined to interview -- intervene in two falls claims, cases that were pending against st. paul and withdrew its position for the supreme court and observers believe it would invalidate the use of disparate impact theory. and instead of furthering the ends of justice is presented the

courts from reviewing potential in meritorious claims and recovering hundreds of millions of dollars to the u.s. treasury. the u.s. attorney in minnesota at a time of the quid pro quo mr. jones was serving as u.s. attorney and acting director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. mr. jones was interviewed by committee staff as part of the investigation march 8th, 2013. before agreeing to be interviewed the department demanded staff not be permitted to ask mr. jones questions other than those involving the quid pro quo. questions remain about whether he was effectively managed both jobs as u.s. attorney and acting director. further example when asked by committee staff about his failure to attend the seminal meeting of the department's civil division, represent these in the city of st. paul which occurred december 2011 he stated he did not attend because he had

an event that precluded his attendance. when pressed further mr. jones indicated the important event was a holiday party called sweet treats and he felt it was more important that he attend the event than it was to attend the seminal meeting on two pending false claims cases in his district. there are many issues to cover in this hearing today and beyond. for his part in a 2013 article in the minneapolis star tribune and mr. jones said, quote, i am looking forward to meeting with the committee and answering all questions. i hope that is the case today. that i will get some answers but even so many questions remain for vote now money. first question has given the open complained and other concerns, why are we even here today? i don't think anyone can provide a good vantage that questions.

proceeding today is on -- unfair to the nominee to force these questions today before the osce -- osc process takes its course but if the chair wants to insist on proceeding it would be unfair to the public if we fail to perform. our due diligence and examine all of these issues carefully. thank you. >> you will have the opportunity after we hear the opening statements to ask the nominee questions. i point out the nominee wanted to go forward with this hearing. he believes the atf deserves better when people on the frontline are investing these crimes they deserve better than not having a permanent director for seven years because the senate won't confirm anyone. i think that is wrong. in response to some of the points you have made i would prefer to have directed jones answers these questions but first of all to make clear he

came in after fast and furious and came in to clean it up. i am sure we can hear from him on many of the things he did. secondly on the issue of the st. paul case which has been well discussed during the nomination of mr. perez mr. jones agreed to be questioned for an entire day by your staff, in the house. third i would note as far as the complaint you brought up with in the office i would note that mr. jones supervises 2300 people with the atf, 25 people with the u.s. attorney's office, as stuart delery will tell anybody here is not always easy to supervise lawyers but he has done his best job. i think it is very important that complain to be heard and that is happening now but to clarify the time line here,

stuart delery -- b. todd jones was nominated in january. by march the committee required nomination materials that were received and made available to senator grassley and his staff with a plan legal hearing on mr. jones's nomination was delayed after the committee was notified of the complaint filed with the u.s. office of special counsel. chairman leahy intended to wait until after they finish their work, meant to be confidential, before holding this hearing. in late april after these allegations were unnecessarily made public the chairman decided to proceed so that b. todd jones could publicly defend his reputation. today's hearing was originally noticed a week ago, the ranking member's requested was postponed until today. last week osc notified the committee the underlying complaint against b. todd jones of management failures was closed due to insufficient evidence and the second